As the warmer technically-spring-but-still-cold-as-hell days arrive, so does a slew of festivals and events. Marking its fourth year, D.C.'s Six Points Music Festival kicks off this week. If the schedule and general planning approach this year are any indicatoin, it looks to be a much more cohesive and promising event than it has been in the past. The young festival has grown from a no-name event looking to champion the local music, to finding its legs by working with several local venues, adding information panels, and inviting some out-of-towners to join in the fun. Here's DCist's take on this year's lineup — well, at least the parts we've gotten familiar with in the past and have some archived wisdome to share with you. As far as what we're looking forward to now — we'll get to that later.

Friday, 4/13 at RNR Bar & Lounge
It's an all-local lineup at (the somewhat strange choice of venue) RNR this Friday as our first ever Three Stars band, Death By Sexy, headlines. We're guessing (hoping?) RNR is going to tell their female bartenders that no dancing on the bar top will be required during the festival. Death By Sexy got some very sweet praise from DCist Ryan way back in the fall of '05: "Death By Sexy reminded us that it's actually a good thing to have a silly, fun time at a show and that neither the band or the audience should always take themselves so seriously. God bless 'em for it." As far as The Beanstalk Library, The Hall Monitors and Convertible Jennifers are concerned, we haven't seen them yet, but are starting to think that we should — based on the sheer number of beer-in-hand, "ohmygodthey'resogood!"s we've heard.

Saturday, 4/14 at The Red & The Black
The Hard Tomorrows blew us away at Unbuckled 2.0, and softened our cold hard hearts with their quirky answers to our interview questions:
So, tell us about yourselves.

Rob: I'm 26 ¾ years old. I used to wear a leotard when I was younger and I played on apparatus like the pommel horse and rings. I did gymnastics competitively for 12 years…for serious. I tried out for the winter Olympics last year, but I did not qualify; apparently gymnastics is not a winter sport.

Kyle: I am the son of a chicken farmer. Now that I live in the big city, I run a recording studio out of my basement. People tell me that I speak in a regional dialect.
They'll share the stage with Massachusettes' The Gulf and local four-piece, Bellman Barker.

Saturday, 4/14 at RNR Bar & Lounge
We've spent some serious QT with all three of the bands on this bill. Gist played our Katrina benefit in 2005, and we've interviewed both The Alphabetical Order and Lemonface. At last year's Six Points, The Alphabetical Order proved to be one of DCist's favorite performances.

For a non-DCist take on the fest, check out the Post's GOGs' picks.